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CLASS 221 'Super Voyager'

Last update January 2014.

The Class 221 'Super
Voyagers' are
diesel-electric
railcar sets built in 2001-2003 by Bombardier Transportation in
Belgium, with some of the assembly work being done in England. They
differ from the Class 220 'Voyagers' in that the 221s are equipped with
tilting equipment offering up to six degrees of tilt to allow them to
take curves faster without affecting
passenger comfort.

They were all built for the Virgin Cross-Country fleet, but
reorganisation of franchises, under which Virgin lost the Cross Country
franchise, divided the
Class 221 fleet in 2007 between Virgin West Coast and Arriva's
CrossCountry
operation; CrossCountry units will not be seen on North Wales trains.
Arriva are not using the name 'Voyager' and the
'explorer' names have been removed from the trains. 221 114 - 118 were
CrossCountry units
for a few months until December 2008 when they returned to Virgin.
(Oddly, their nameplates were included with others sold by Virgin at a
charity auction.) All
the non-tilting Class 220 types are with CrossCountry; the tilting
equipment on the CrossCountry 221s has apparently been isolated.

The coach bodies, the engines and most of the equipment
of the two types are the same, but the bogies are very different; the
220s have inside bearings which expose the whole of the wheel faces,
whilst the 221s have a more traditional-looking outside-framed bogie.
To
aid identification by staff, the two types had different Virgin
'shield' logos on the nose: the 221s have a red background to the
shields, and the 220s a silver background, but Cross Country have
removed the shields from their units.

The Virgin 221s feature an
interesting naming theme, the trains being named after various
'voyaging personalities' with dark blue backgrounds to their
plates (fixed to one of the intermediate coaches). Virgin removed
these from units transferred to Cross-Country.

The fleet numbers of the units are
marked low down on the corner of the driving ends and very hard to see
when the trains are in service: best best is to note the name and refer
to the table below; alternatively each coach of a 221 has a number of
which the last two digits are the last two of the unit number plus 50,
e.g. coach 60360
is part of 221 110. The 221 fleet is owned by Halifax Asset
Finance, managed by Angel Trains, and
leased to the operators.

There were 44 Class 221 trains built, numbered 221 101 to 221 144. 101
to 140 were five-car trains built for Virgin Cross Country, and 141 to
144 were
four-car sets which were intended for use by Virgin West Coast on the
London - North Wales service. However, things have not worked out like
this.

All coaches are equipped with a Cummins QSK19 diesel engine of 560kW
(750hp)
at 1800rpm, powering a generator which supples current to motors
driving two axles per coach. Maximum speed is 125 miles per hour, and
1200 miles can be travelled between refuellings. A five car set
provides 26 seats in First (originally 'Club') class and 224 in
standard. All vehicles are
air-conditioned and fitted with at-seat audio entertainment systems and
power sockets for laptop computers and mobile phone charging.

but in 2008 they are being refomed and re-equipped in preparation for
taking over North Wales 'business' services at the start of 2009.

The main change is to the 'shop' coach (D) is now positioned second
in the train, next to the first class coach (A), and has been fitted
with new seating 'for use as standard or first class as required.' The
'shop' itself is at the end of the coach nearest to the three 'normal'
standard class cars. Presumably the seating in coach D will become
first-class on 'business' trains between North Wales and London which
will be serving meals as the current Pendolinos do. The 'hybrid'
seating is '2 + 2' layout, all but four of the seats are arranged round
tables and match the windows.

The 'galley' in first-class coach A has been refitted with new
equipment, and interior closed-circuit TV has been fitted throughout
the train, as well as forward facing CCTV in the driving cabs as found
in Arriva's 175s. The re-forming has also required to changes to
electrical arrangements, as the trains are set up for each coach's
electrical supply to be fed from the adjacent one if necessary.

A further change in late 2010 was the disbandment of four-car unit 221
144, its two centre vehicles being used to strengthen the other two
4-car sets to 5-car, while the two power cars were stored as spares.

During 2014 all Virgin units underwent a programme of modifications,
most obviously including the replacement of the front 'skirt' with a
different version similar to that used in the East Midlands Trains
Class 222 'Meridians', requring the unit number to be placed in a
different position, higher and further back.

All Virgin's Voyagers are allocated to Central Rivers depot near
Burton-on-Trent. The First Class driving coach has a yellow rectangle
on its
front coupler shroud to aid identification as a train approaches a
station.

The Voyager controversy

The life of the Voyager units so far has been dogged by all sorts
of problems, some of them technical and others related to the
impractical nature of the re-cast 'Operation Princess' Cross-Country
timetable which came with them when they entered full service in the
Autumn of 2002 and was later considrably cut back.

Delivery and testing of the trains seemed to indicate that they would
be reliable, but their 'miles per casualty' figures in service did not
seem to have lived up to expectations. In the early days there were
also problems affecting passengers, notably with the toilets - the
author became trapped in a Voyager toilet on one of his first journeys
which did not endear him to the new stock ... Luggage space is
very limited; Virgin have been removing some seats to create more but
one still sees large suitcases piled on seats. Many seats have limited
legroom, and there are less 'four round a table' seats than the older
trains had which is a disadvantage for family groups.

The quality of a journey by Voyager is a subject which generates wildly
diverging opinions even among railway enthusiasts. Many do not like
their cramped interiors, others hate the vibrations from the engine,
while of course many readers of this page will just condemn them out of
hand as 'plastic.' Others say they are great, and passenger surveys
appear to agree with this.

The previous fleet of trains, a mixture of HSTs and
loco-hauled Mk 2 coaches, certainly had more seats and general space as
well as a certain railfan interest. Many of the problems were predicted
by informed observers, but in the end they are an inevitable
consequence of Virgin's strategy and present-day requirements imposed
on the railway. The shortage of seats compared to the old trains, for
example, is partly due to the the introduction by the safety
authorities of a requirement for a 'crumple zone' at the end of each
coach, and the demand for toilets suitable for wheelchair users. Add to
this the quest for speed which leads to narrower coaches able to tilt
without hitting anything, and the higher cost per seat of the
all-powered coaches compared to the marginal cost of an extra
loco-hauled vehicle, and you get something like a Voyager.

Cross-Country, who have taken over some of the 221s and all of the
non-tilting 220s, have plans to modify them to increase seating and
luggage capacity.